Gardens and parks
Parks represent a huge botanical heritage and an artistic expression of great value, they reflect fashion and the owner’s personality.
To visit a botanical garden with a guide means to evaluate the events and reasons that created it, to understand its symbolic value, to learn the harmony of nature in a leaf, to explore the language of flowers and plants as a way to convey feelings and thoughts.
Giardino (Garden) Giusti
An evergreen oasis created in the XVI century in the historical centre of Verona. You can walk among century-old cypresses and symmetrical hedges and go uphill to admire the beauty of the city.
In this earthly Paradise, you experience a sense of serenity and confidence, thanks to the rational geometry of the garden, a sense of confusion comes from the monstrous balcony, a cave with mirrors and shells, a feeling of vertigo is given by the green labyrinth and a spiral staircase that you will climb inside the tower up to the medieval town walls. This garden reflects the culture of its owner in the Renaissance period, it expresses trust in the power of reason and at the same time loss of confidence in front of the mystery of nature.
Geometric boxwood beds are decorated with statues of pagan deities, as an allusion to the rich collection of ancient Roman sculpture and Latin stone inscriptions of the Palace, now open to tourists.
Poyega Garden
Hidden among the vineyards of Valpolicella, it is one of the last Italian-style gardens, a triumph of landscape design and geometry.
The real gem of this Park is an open-air theater in the Greek style, built entirely with plants. The stage and stands are made of hedges, boxwood, hornbeam and cypress. Do not miss the grove inhabited by exotic stone animals and the temple of stalactites.
Negrar is 15 km from Verona
Parco Natura Viva - Park Live Nature
It is the most important zoological collection in Italy, with 1200 animals of 250 different species, which have found on these hills between Verona and Lake Garda a praiseworthy habitat. The park covers 42 hectares and is divided in continents, where the animals, grouped according to their geographical areas of origin, live and reproduce in a natural oasis of great beauty. In this zoo you can admire the great biodiversity of our planet, and you can also see extinct species in more or less recent eras, such as various life-size dinosaurs, flying reptiles and the dodo. The park also aims to raise awareness on environmental issues and thanks to its research center, it supports projects to reintroduce some species into their natural habitat.
Pastrengo, 20 km from Verona
Sigurta Park
Was awarded as the most beautiful private garden in Europe. It occupies a hilly area of 60 hectares and offers spectacular blooms at any time of the year and scenic views on the Mincio river and the medieval towers in Valeggio. There are eighteen ponds where you can admire water lilies, papyri and Lotus flowers, along the Avenue of roses, irises and tulips you can feel in Paradise. The Gothic chapel inspires meditation, and the pools with turtles and fish, the boxwood maze, Romeo and Juliet 's sundial, deer and other animals will pefectly entertain your children.
Valeggio, 30 km from Verona
Vittoriale Park
Designed for Gabriele D'annunzio, a vain dictator, adventurer and the most popular writer of the pre-war era. This Park covers 9 hectares and is an interesting example of green architecture: rose-covered arbors accompany the visitor along the entire road to the valley, where two rivers flow: Crazy Water and Wise Water, which form the Dancing Pond.
In the Park, as if swaying in the middle of a sea of trees, a real ship is moored. From its deck you can admire the charming and enchanted lake Garda. There are many unexpected things here, some of which related to the poet’s and soldiers’ bold ventures. For example, an airplane hanging from the ceiling of the theater, which the poet used to mock Vienna during the First world war. On the hill there is a round mausoleum with the poet’s sarcophagus at the very top, surrounded by the tombs of his faithful soldiers.
See also for Venetian Villas.
Gardone Riviera, 70 km from Verona.
André Heller Park
A small garden (1 ha.) that includes the most beautiful plants from every continent, mixed with Oriental elements and Zen water games.
In the middle there is an amazing artificial mountain of dolomite rocks, which, although a miniature, reaches a height of 13 meters. The path between ponds, pagodas and monstrous creatures, is framed by bright colours, flowers and works of modern art.
Gardone Riviera, 70 km from Verona.
Villa Fracanzan Park
A vast Park with an area of 40 hectares.
The terrace of the Palace offers a nice view on an endless green alley, decorated with ancient mulberries, cedars, yews, hornbeams, fountains and ponds. In the orchard, surrounded by geometric evergreen hedges, fruit trees and typical vegetables of the Venetian aristocracy are grown. Once the vegetable garden was a necessary and ordinary asset in all Venetian villas, now it is a rarity, here remained intact over the centuries. In the courtyard of the noble palace you can admire a valuable collection of tractors and agricultural tools, some of which ingeniously assembled.
Orgiano, 60 km from Verona
See also the Villa
